“Come with me, and I will give you the life you deserve. No more glances. No more whispers. No more living in fear.”
It sounds too good to be true. “How?”
“A simple trade,” the faerie replies. She offers Beatrix her hand. “You can have an eternity here. Anyone you want to be there will be there. Anything you want it to be it will be. A world of your own making.”
“And what is it you want from me?” She peers into the crystal surface of the water at the other Lancaut. It’s what she thought heaven would be when she was a child.
“Your word and your soul, and it’s yours,” the faerie says. “You can rest. You can be happy. Forever.”
Beatrix studies the faerie, from her outstretched fingertips to herautumn-red hair to her burning gaze. A creature who is no longer human but used to be. A creature who can never suffer, never hurt. Never die. Beatrix could become that. It would only cost her everything.
“The river will take you home,” the faerie says.
But that isn’t home. Home is Lancaut. Home is William. Her William. Her daughter.
Beatrix steps away from the river. “It’s not real.”
“It’s better,” the faerie says. “No pain, no suffering, no hardship.”
“No love, no joy, no sorrow,” Beatrix counters.
“You want sorrow?” the faerie snaps. Her eyes flare bright.
“I want life.” Even the pain, if it makes it real.
The faerie is next to her now. Beatrix can feel her icy breath on her neck, like a winter wind howling across the moors. “You would refuse me?”
Beatrix tries to appease the creature. “Your offer is far too generous. I only want my own life back.”
The faerie scrutinizes Beatrix with eyes of sunlight and moonlight. “You want to live?”
Tears spring to Beatrix’s eyes. “Yes. More than anything. I want to live.”
She smiles, but this time it is not hollow. It sends a shiver down Beatrix’s spine. “If you love being human so much, so be it.”
“Thank you,” Beatrix gasps. Her knees buckle and she sinks to the ground. “Thank you.”
“Remember this moment, Beatrix. Remember that you begged me for your sad human life and I gave you what you asked for,” the faerie says. Her eyes blaze in the dark.
Beatrix swipes her tears away. “I will. I will, I swear it.”
“Remember what I offered you when you are suffering. When the pain of your pitiful human existence becomes too much to bear. When you look back at all you have lived through and all that lies ahead of you with despair, remember the moment you refused me.”
Beatrix’s insides go cold as the faerie’s words crystalize like ice around her heart.
“You will live to regret this moment,” the faerie hisses in her ear. “And then you will keep on living.”
June 13, 1505Lancaut, England
It is still dark when Beatrix wakes. Or maybe it is another dark, another night. The pain and exhaustion in her body have vanished. Maybe she has slept for days.
The cottage is shrouded in a heavy silence. She doesn’t hear William or her sisters. Her heart skips. She doesn’t hear her baby.
Beatrix sits up. The bed has been cleaned and made up with fresh linens. And she’s wearing a new dress. Or rather, an old one. A borrowed one. Her best one. A knot forms in the pit of her stomach.
She swings her feet over the side of the bed, expects weak and shaking legs, but they bear her weight with no issue. She runs a trembling hand along the sapphire skirts of her wedding dress. They slip through her fingers, as smooth and cool as they were on her wedding day. She reaches for her hair and finds a crown of flowers. Her pulse quickens. Something isn’t right.
Then she hears it, that impossible sound that makes her heart soar and shatter at the same time: her daughter, crying from the next room.
